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Revell 1/32 Spitfire MkIIa


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There have been a lot of these lately so I am not going to bother with box & sprue shots, just pitch straight in...I had been thinking about this one for a while, so had a Plan.

This meant starting by jumping ahead and assembling the wings and tailplanes so I could do some serious dry-fitting against the fuselage halves - it all seemed pretty good, excellent tbh with a cautionary note that a gap was possible at the wing root but very easily cured with a spreader, which in the event was not required.

I decided early on that I wasn't going to fully prime this one - somehow the primer always seems to come off very easily anyway so isn't giving much advantage aside from revealing joint flaws - so put stage one of The Plan into action, a black wash into all the rivet detail, using the Vallejo wash.

 

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This worked pretty well, the wash was given hours to dry and re-activated easily with water to wipe off nicely. It did reveal one curiosity, namely that Revell is a bit inconsistent with the sizes of the recessed rivets - on the top of the tailplane they are nice and small, on the bottom, twice the size. Fortunately the underside is not going to be on show once its in the cabinet

 

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Next it was on to the cockpit; should mention here that part of The Plan was to use this set inside and out: 

 

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First out was the Interior Grey Green for an overall spray over all interior surfaces; the rear of the fuselage halves was masked out and given a coat of silver, then on to detail painting and detailing - The Plan involved using the Barracuda snapshot upgrade for this kit and their resin seat, a very nice bit of moulding even if you do have to think about how exactly it will fit in with the kit parts. As with all the recent 1/32 kits from Revell, the detail parts are quite nice but need a lot of cleanup to make them fit perfectly - as it must be said do a lot of the parts, but once clean they are generally a good match. Barracuda include decals with the snapshot and some of these were used, but they were more awkward then I would have liked. I did not use their dial decals as they simply did not match the size of the dials on the kit IP, instead I used some from Airscale. The kit instrument decal is even worse, it doesn't even match the layout of the plastic and is unusable as far as I am concerned.

 

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A layer of Future/Klear and it was out with the Vallejo wash to bring out the details, and here I hit the first hiccup in The Plan; after just a few minutes drying the wash refused to budge. A quick test on the wings showed that there it was happy to re-activate and wipe off, so I am blaming the Future here, it has clearly reacted and absorbed the wash. I shouldn't be too surprised, I know some people find it be a near miracle fluid capable of uses far beyond its design, I am consistently disappointed with its results. I think we tend to forget that it is first and foremost designed as a floor polish not a varnish, its just cheaper than real varnishes. Anyway, I am now disappointed with my cockpit as it looks messy, but am not willing to strip it down and start from scratch, so pressed on. Next time, a proper lacquer varnish before washing.

 

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Seatbelts from Eduard, and the cockpit tub is glued to the starboard fuselage half

 

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Next it was time to get the fuselage together, and suddenly the fit didn't seem too good; I think this is down to me, somehow I must have not got the cockpit in perfectly and it was forcing the halves apart slight at the front. I trimmed it a bit to improve matters, but otherwise went with brute force and superglue, taking it one section at a time. I still ended up with a gap on the forward fueslage, but on the plus side no longer needed a spreader to close up the gaps at the wing root. A little pressure was needed to keep the fuselage properly bedded down whilst the glue set, but otherwise no filler at the wing roots apart from a very small amount at the trailing edge where the corners are a little short-shot

 

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Those rivets are looking nice and hopefully will show through the Lifecolor paints, which tend to be more transparent than Vallejo or Tamiya.

 

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On the underside I used the Barracuda oil cooler but did not have the confidence to do the major surgery on the other side for the radiator;  I am also using the ailerons from the same set, though do wonder if my set suffered a little from shrinkage, everything seems a little undersized and indeed the oil cooler needed a sliver of plastic card to lengthen it so it would fit the recess.

 

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Which brings us up to date; a little sanding around those seams where I have used the trusty 3M glazing putty (highly recommended) and I will be only using primer along the main seams to confirm they are good and cover the red of the putty.

Edited by CheshireGap
clean up of URLS
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Nice one, looking good, it's a nice kit and the Barracuda stuff certainly helps it along, if I remember rightly I had a few problems with the ailerons as well.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

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  • 1 month later...

A little update on my usual slow progress - I always seem to delay the airbrushing as I am not confident I won't muck it up...

Gun-sight went in, windscreen & rear canopy masked up and glued in, the kit door is tacked in place to help mask the cockpit - the Barracuda door will eventually be fitted.

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Next up the wheel wells are done in interior green though I suspect this may not be correct in all cases

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The Sky went down, and as hoped for, those washed rivets and panel lines are showing through the Lifecolor!

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Next Dark Earth followed by an evening of rolling worms and masking in between:

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Bringing us up to date, Dark Green, and those panel lines still look good to me!

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The Lifecolor set comes with a Light Green and a Light Earth as well, so these were used very thin to modulate the main colours somewhat, its subtle but it is there

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I wanted to spray the markings but do not currently have the right red or blue so there may be a delay while I lay my hands on some, meanwhile I can at least crack on with the squadron codes and walkways.

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I "mixed" the colours for the roundels here are the ratio's...

Outer yellow roundel ring and wing leading edge I mixed Tamiya XF-3 yellow (99%) and a spot of Tamiya XF-7 red.

Blue ring, Tamiya XF-8 blue (95%) and XF-1 black (5%).

For the red of the roundel was a mixture of Tamiya XF-7 red (75%) and XF-64 NATO brown (25%)

 

here's the result...

 

good job so far 👍

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

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On 15/02/2020 at 19:37, shortCummins said:

I "mixed" the colours for the roundels here are the ratio's...

Outer yellow roundel ring and wing leading edge I mixed Tamiya XF-3 yellow (99%) and a spot of Tamiya XF-7 red.

Blue ring, Tamiya XF-8 blue (95%) and XF-1 black (5%).

For the red of the roundel was a mixture of Tamiya XF-7 red (75%) and XF-64 NATO brown (25%)

 

here's the result...

 

good job so far 👍

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

Thanks for the info, and the colours do look to be spot on with your Tempest, however I am off Tamiya paints at the moment: I don't know if it is my thinning or otherwise but I find them to be very fragile, they seem to rub off under handling and inevitably lift under masking. My desk has to be cleared and moved for the next couple days as the plumber needs access to the floorboards, so I have ordered some MR Paint - the only range I can find that offers the actual colours - and they should arrive by the time he has finished, so that should solve the problem without too much of a delay!

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Looking very good so far, I'm impressed with the panel line technique, seems to work well! 

 

Also impressed with the kit, Revell's recent WWII releases in 1/32 seem to be excellent value for money. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The MRP paints arrived and after some procrastination for fear of messing up at this late stage I started applying the Montex masks. after the squadron codes and serial number, I decided to do one pair of roundels at a time so as not to complicate things too much.

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In the bottle the MRP look rather light, but once down the colours do look right for the scale; they are nice and thin and spray beautifully, as long as you are ready to do it in layers, on the downside they stink, and want to run out of the bottle rather than drip into the airbrush cup.

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Fin flashes and under wing roundels finish things off; the white is some very old Tamiya XF2 in a big pot that still seems to go down OK, and seems to have a less powdery finish than some of my newer Tamiya paints

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The finished result is just so much better than decals it is well worth the anxiety inducing process of doing it. There are just some tiny touch-ups to do and it is on to weathering!

 

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On 02/03/2020 at 10:06, spitfire said:

Looking great, the markings look grand, I always use masks these days and in this scale they look so much better.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Agreed, I have a number of 1/32 kits (Tammy Spit & P-51D, SH Tempest V, Hasegawa Ki-61 etc) in the stash and am looking at picking up masks for most of them! No way I am going to use decals on that 1/24th Typhoon either!

 

19 hours ago, shortCummins said:

looking very good, painted markings make a difference don't they. 

did you have to thin the MRP or did you use it straight from the bottle?

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

Straight from the bottle, just kept the pressure well below 20 psi and built it up slowly. Overall I am quite impressed by MRP, just a shame about that lacquer smell!

 

7 hours ago, Bangor Lad said:

There is some very insporational work going on here!

Thank you, but I am making a mess of the chipping to restore some balance! I was using the sponge method and somehow managed to create a near perfect rectangle with my random dabs...I should have laid down some gloss varnish first so I could remove accidents, but stuck with it now so will have to try to disguise it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Last update before posting the RFI photos: showing the tiny section of Albion Alloys Brass used in place of the inaccurate aerial terminator on the fin,  the fitting at the other end, and the replacement Quickboost exhausts painted up. Unfortunately the armoured windscreen is currently lost, as will be seen on the RFI pics; if it turns up I will be adding it.

 

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Edited by CheshireGap
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  • 11 months later...

Looks fantastic, I am about to start on my own Spitfire and I am curious about the wash you did at the start, was this before you painted? Did you wash direct onto the model before you painted it, was it varnished first? Sorry just not seen it before and wondered if it is better than pre-shading.

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2 hours ago, Edwardii said:

Looks fantastic, I am about to start on my own Spitfire and I am curious about the wash you did at the start, was this before you painted? Did you wash direct onto the model before you painted it, was it varnished first? Sorry just not seen it before and wondered if it is better than pre-shading.

Thanks, Edwardii! The wash was applied straight on to bare plastic - I find the Vallejo wash will not wipe off paint or varnish without leaving considerable staining behind, whereas on bare plastic it will wipe off easily even days later, leaving behind exactly the right effect in rivets and panel lines, and dense enough to show through a layer or two of airbrushed camo

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